Burglary, Pockets and the Hobbit

[Mister Underhill]

Interesting point, Esty, though I’m not convinced that my lembas reading in Gimli’s case is misconstrued. Gimli’s gluttonous gobbling (and his unrealistic obsession with Galadriel) are both signs of a strong dash of fertility (and willingness) but – tragically – without an appropriate female relationship within which to expend his energy. This is the fate of many Dwarves owing to the poor ratio of males to females in the population (perhaps a reason behind general Dwarvish grumpiness and industriousness?). This is expressed in large scope by the Dwarvish tendency to delve enormous womb-symbols for themselves (Khazad-dûm, et al) and in Gimli’s particular case with an unusual fixation on the Caves of Aglarond, which is really only another symbolic longing for what Galadriel represents to him:

'And, Legolas, when the torches are kindled and men walk on the sandy floors under the echoing domes, ah! then, Legolas, gems and crystals and veins of precious ore glint in the polished walls; and the light glows through folded marbles, shell-like, translucent as the living hands of Queen Galadriel. [...] No dwarf could be unmoved by such loveliness. None of Durin's race would mine those caves for stones or ore, not if diamonds and gold could be got there. Do you cut down groves of blossoming trees in the spring-time for firewood? We would tend these glades of flowering stone, not quarry them. With cautious skill, tap by tap – a small chip of rock and no more, perhaps, in a whole anxious day – so we could work, and as the years went by, we should open up new ways, and display far chambers that are still dark, glimpsed only as a void beyond fissures in the rock.’

I hardly need to comment on the subtext at work here. Besides, I think the ratio is about right. An Elf would be content to nibble a corner of a cake; Gimli gobbled one; the Hobbits each eat two or three.